FCTA shuts Dutse-Alhaji market to remove makeshift shops

Following a resurgence of traffic build up on the Dutse-Alhaji-Bwari road by the Dutse-Alhaji Market, the FCTA over the weekend shut down the market for a general clean up and renovation. City & Crime reports that the gradual return of gridlock to the area was said to have been caused by lack of a parking […]

Following a resurgence of traffic build up on the Dutse-Alhaji-Bwari road by the Dutse-Alhaji Market, the FCTA over the weekend shut down the market for a general clean up and renovation.

City & Crime reports that the gradual return of gridlock to the area was said to have been caused by lack of a parking space in the market, as the space has been converted into shop attachments.

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Activities of the enforcement exercise included a general cleanup of the market, desilting of its drainage system and removal of makeshift shops.

The perimeter fence of the market built by the FCTA about two years ago has also been given a facelift with new painting, besides levelling up of eroded portions of the market.

Senior Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement, Comrade Ikharo Attah, who led the team, explained to journalists that his principal, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, was determined to keep the market clean at all times and ensure its operation did not impede smooth traffic.

The Manager of the market, Sunday Marcus, commended the task force and the minister for working hard to clean up the market from time to time.

Pledging the continued collaboration of all the traders in the market, Marcus urged his colleagues to always keep to the rules regulating operation in the market, even as he disclosed that they would set aside a day for general sanitation of the market weekly.

One of the affected makeshift shop owners, Linus Okoronkwo, popularly known as PRO, decried the high cost of buying or renting shops in the market and therefore appealed for a better arrangement of incorporating the attachments in the market to enable the poor have access.